By Brian Foster

Other Death Experience - Nicola and the son of her friend

This is a most unusual story of a friend of a woman who was pregnant, had a baby boy and the recollections of the boy just before his birth.  The child, years later remembers where he was as his mother was in labor and the specific events the friend experienced as she went to help the boy's mother at the hospital.

This account is located on the NDERF.org site, which has thousands of NDE's from all over the world. The individual story is here.

The actions in this story are a testament to the Doctrine of Spiritism. For without the knowledge presented to us by Allan Kardec about the organization and processes of the spirit realm, this story would be unexplainable. By reading and understanding The Spirits Book, which tells us we are immortal souls traveling through multiple lives in a journey of improvement to become pure spirits, we greet the happenings in this story with a comprehension based on the love given to us by our spirit mentors and the Supreme Intelligence, God.

I will let Nicola introduce her story;

'My friend and I met as school teachers at the same school, several years ago.  She was pregnant when we met, and she chose me to be present at the birth of her child, because she was a single mother and afraid of being alone.  It was a tremendous honor to be invited into the delivery room because, even though I have children of my own, it was a fascinating opportunity to see a birth without experiencing the pain myself!   

My friend delivered a baby boy named Michael, and it was an incredible experience.  I joked to her that I saw her son before she did! (I saw his head poking out before he was born and she didn't have a mirror to see for herself!)'[1]

A perfectly normal occurrence when a friend has a baby. Nothing out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, Nicola's friend died a few months after the birth of her son. The boy was cared for by his grandparents. The grandparents, on the son's mother side, lived in the same town and within the school boundaries where Nicola teaches.

Nicola and her friend were both school teachers, working at the same school. Nicola was pleased to see her old friend's son, Michael, in her class. Although, she never spoke of her friendship with his deceased mother, for fear it may show favoritism over the rest of the class. Nicola also didn't have a relationship with Michael's grandparents and they weren't at the hospital during Michael's birth.

The Extraordinary Occurrence

Michael was in Nicola's class when he was nine and a half years old. For a poetry assignment, Nicola asked her class to write about their earliest memories. As Nicola states, most of the children would write about kindergarten or of a favorite childhood toy, when they were toddlers.  Then Michael raised his hand;

'Michael put up his hand and said that he remembers watching everyone from up in the sky, and being in his mother's belly before he was born.  He said that when he was waiting to be born, he was invisible and he was in my GREY car with me on the way to the hospital while I listened to the song "Winter Spring Summer or Fall." (This is what he called the song.  He likely doesn't know the real name, and he probably hasn't heard it since ... but it was "You've Got a Friend" by James Taylor.  I used to have the cassette tape in that car!!!). This is bizarre because I did drive a grey car at that time and I haven't had once for the past 7 years (2 years after he was born).  I can't imagine he even knows that song from today's radio music.  My heart started to beat like crazy.  How the heck would he know that?  Even his grandparents wouldn't know that and his mom wouldn't have known that before she died.  Even if somehow she did, he was only three months old when she passed.  How would she tell him?  I certainly never told her what song was on in my car on the way to the hospital so I can't explain this!'[2] 

We have heard numerous stories of people with NDE's who clinically died at the hospital, left their bodies and watched events unfold around their corpse. Recollections of nurses frantically setting up equipment, reactions of friends in the waiting room and other specific details which are unexplainable, except by the famous saying of the fictional detective Sherlock Homes, 'when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'[3]

The improbable being the existence of another world, another dimension from whence we came and shall return. Our ability to separate our immortal spirit from our physical manifestation and still retain our senses. For isn't this the greatest obstacle to overcome in our belief in the afterlife. One could easily believe that an orb of energy could escape our carcass and fly away to be reabsorbed in the Universal Intelligence. For this would still retain some sense of otherness, a mystery that many of us don't really want to discover. A deeply desired hope that when we die, all of our actions on earth are also left there. No guilt, no blame, no sense of failure, only love and forgiveness.

To have the realization before us, that indeed we are the same, with a dense body or without is either a wondrous discovery or a horrible moment of truth, depending on your point of view. Remaining who we are entails bringing with us to the other side our complete unadulterated set of memoires. Each good, bad or indifferent deed is stored, for us to contemplate about for all eternity.

There are a series of books, all psychographed by Francisco (Chico) C. Xavier, and inspired by the spirit Andre Luiz. He was a wealthy doctor in Rio de Janeiro who died sometime around the end of the 19^th century or the beginning of the 20^th century. He chronicled his death, his time spent wandering in limbo and his rescue by good spirits to the celestial city of Nosso Lar. Which means 'Our Home' in Portuguese. Nosso Lar, the name of his first book relates his recovery and realization of his place in the universe. He discovers that heaven isn't a place for idleness, but one of self-sacrificing work on behalf of other spirits. Spirits who are on earth in physical form and spirits lost on various levels of atonement.

In subsequent books, Andre is a member of a team of spirits who travel to earth to assist us in our needs. Andre learns that we are compelled to be reborn to acquire valuable lessons, so we may pay for our wrongs in past lives. In the book, Workers of the Life Eternal, Andre goes further to detail the penalty of incorrect actions, 'We will be compelled to regenerative work both during incarnation and discarnation, both in our corporeal existence and in the death of our body, both in the present and in the future. No one will successfully reach the peak of life eternal without first having learned the balance to do so.'[4] He observed, after personally seeing the end of life experiences of multiple people, the passion to hold onto material objects, the regrets of wrong doing, the terrible physical inflictions caused by alcoholism or drugs, the totality of the effect on the spirit as it withdraws from the body. While, on the other hand, spirits who led a life relatively free from such actions, achieved a calmer death, a faster withdrawal from their bodies. The spirits who did not resist temptation experienced a much harder effort to let go. Even after full withdraw of their spirits from their physical bodies, these types of people were confused and required care to fully recover their thought processes.

Andre Luiz isn't the only one to present the salient facts about reincarnation to us, from Hinduism, Krishna in The Garuda Purana tells us, 'Everyone creates their own fate. Even life in the womb is affected by the karma from a previous life.'[5]

Buddha notifies us that our actions have reactions when he speaks about rebirth; 'From a sound, an echo returns. A body creates a shadow. So, too, will misery come to him who does evil works.'[6] The message has been consistent from the earliest times. The spirit world has delivered the certified letter, and it doesn't matter if we sign the return receipt or not. The process of payment and redemption is known to any who care to discover it.

Hence, the specter of not only living with our past but paying for our past is a realization that many of us would rather postpone, if not rationalize completely away. Because, which of us hasn't been regretful of past deeds. I know I have and I have plenty to pay for in my next life. Not a comforting thought before you go to bed.

But what is comforting, is that you are loved, warts and all. For every spirit knows they have been in the same shoes. All have been woefully inadequate during one life or another. Have comfort in the knowledge that the prize is worth the effort. Life in a heavenly city in the spirit world is indeed joyous.

Therefore, not only are we aware when we are parting from this world, but we are fully cognizant when we enter. Michael had the gift to remember his entry. For like all of us, Michael too, is an immortal spirit.

Michael continued his remembrances;

'Michael said that he remembers me stopping for gas and asking the attendant for directions to the hospital (TRUE).  He said that he wanted me for his mommy because he liked my voice when I was speaking to the attendant.  (I did stop for gas and I was kind of lost going to a rural hospital, so I asked for directions).  Then he said that he remembers that the parking lot was partially closed for construction, so I had to park on a corner and run to the hospital.  By this point my jaw was almost on the floor and the whole class was starting at me.  I had never even told the class (or Michael) that I was at his birth.  The class must have thought this was one crazy story.'[7]

Michael's spirit was free from his new body as his mother was going into labor. For some reason his spirit rested, waiting for his birth, with his mother's best friend.

Proof of a Life Plan

Next, Michael told Nicola, what he saw and wanted, even before he officially entered the world;

'Then Michael said the most incredible thing - He said that while his "real mom" was in labor, he asked God if I could be his mom because he knew that his "real mom" wouldn't survive very long, and he was afraid of being alone on Earth. Apparently he was told that he couldn't have me for his "real mom" but that everything would be OK and he would still get to be around me during his life.'[8] 

Imagine the thoughts racing through Nicola's mind. Irrefutable facts are disclosed on the day Nicola traveled to the hospital in the identified car, the stop at the gas station, with the exact music playing, then Michael relays that he knew, he knew! That his mother was going to die in the near future.

Unless there is a plan for each of us, already set before we are born, how could Michael be certain that he would be motherless soon? The answer is there is a plan. A blueprint for each one of us. Our life is designed before we begin and we are part of that effort. To fully comprehend the process and planning of your reincarnations, read my book, The Case for Reincarnation ' Your Path to Perfection.

As our life progresses the spirit realm watches over us and responds to heart-felt prayers and pleas. Michael was worried about his life without a mother, but his fears were answered that all would be fine. He was even given the detail that he would be around his mother's friend in later life. How little do we realize that the path of our life is less free-will and choices made than we could consider possible.

Next Michael describes in exact detail what occurred when Nicola was in the hospital;

'Michael said that he kept begging for me to be his mother.  He watched me go down the hallway from the birthing suite to the waiting lounge to make a phone call from a pay phone (true -- there was no cell signal in the hospital), and that while I was there I was very cold so I put on a sweater that someone else left on the waiting room chairs.  By this point the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.  I hate to admit this, but I did find a nice warm cardigan in that waiting room and I put it on because I was so cold.  I've never done anything like that before, but it was a small hospital and there were literally no other people in the labor ward and I waited to see if anyone would come to claim the sweater, and no one did.  I was so cold! I put it on and ended up wearing it home (Shame on me, I know, I still feel guilty about that.  I've felt so guilty that I never wore it again, especially because it reminds me of my friend who ended up passing away.  Regardless, I have to mention it because I've never told anyone about taking someone else's sweater, and it's a huge part of this story!!!!  

Michael concluded by saying that he watched me make the phone call and put on the other person's sweater, and that's the last thing he remembers.  He was born about thirty minutes after I went to the lounge and made that phone call.'[9]

Nicola was completely alone in the hospital's labor waiting room, no one was there to see her take the sweater to use for a moment of comfort.

Nicola talks to Michael alone afterwards;

'Later, I privately said to Michael, "Yes, I was at your birth.  How did you know all of that stuff?"  His grandparents weren't at the birth and there was literally no way he would have known any of that.  How could he make it up?  He said that it's easy, he just had to think back to his earliest memories.  He asked me why I don't remember being born, too and he said "It's OK, my life did turn out OK so don't worry about not being my mom".

WOW.'[10]

Michael was given the gift of accessing his first physical memories. The spirit world must have thought that Michael required the comfort to reach back and realize he is loved by the invisible universe around him and that people on earth would be present to assist in his growth and coming trials.

Nicola then closes her account by attempting to make sense of the entire episode;

'I write this in all sincerity as my evidence that there must be some kind of heaven up there, if he could have memories of watching his birth and waiting to be born.   I considered the idea that his mom speaks to him from the afterlife, and maybe she told him herself but how would she even know this information?'[11]

Yes, Nicola, you are correct, there is a heaven up there. Heaven is why we are here. To achieve the required spirituality, the necessary amount of love, charity, and fraternity, the constant adherence to justice and honesty we travel through multiple lives. God is not unjust, we are allowed infinite chances to become the pure spirits that we are destined to be.

Michael's mother could be watching the progress of her son and soothing his fears when he sleeps. For when we are at rest our spirits communicate with other spirits, providing us with moral reinforcement so we may strive on in our quest. 

The spirit world doesn't just drop us on the planet and let us fend for ourselves. We arrive with a detailed set of goals, the environment set up for our success and a legion of spirit workers who track and help guide us onto the path of victory. All we have to do is listen.

Your life has more meaning and complexities than you realize. There are levels of the spirit world that helps us and hinders us. To understand how your individual fate is determined, tracked, and evaluated please read my book, Explore Your Destiny ' Since Your Life's Path is (mostly) Predetermined.

For more information about Spiritism and daily updates, please visit my blog at NWSpiritism.